Chapter 122: Traces

The upper part of the wall that Jang Woo-hyun was looking at.

열야홊붼□

The last character was damaged, but it was still legible enough to make out.

Below it, characters were written in a different style than before—many of which had faded, as if someone had tried to erase them.

“What is this? Looks like some kind of symbol.”

“Let’s check the inside first. There might still be some of them left.”

As Cho-su approached, Jang Woo-hyun stopped examining Kim Min-soo’s traces and moved again. The interior of the fairly large cave might still harbor danger.

The cave, with light-emitting artifacts embedded in the ceiling, was spacious enough for over ten people to walk side by side. As they walked in deeper while examining their surroundings, a massive stone gate appeared.

Seeing the energy flowing above the stone gate, Jang Woo-hyun realized the situation wasn’t ordinary and drew his sword.

Just as he was about to break through the gate and enter, Cho-su grabbed his arm before the sword could swing.

“Hold on.”

A beam of light shone from the third eye between Cho-su’s brows as he approached the stone gate. He turned his head here and there, examining various spots before letting out a sigh.

“This… we can’t just open it carelessly.”

Turning around, Cho-su pointed behind him as he approached Jang Woo-hyun and Jin Ha-un.

“Whatever is inside, the gate was deliberately shut. If we force it open, everything will collapse.”

“Can you open it?”

“It’ll take some time, but it shouldn’t be too hard. It’s not locked intricately—more like it was made to stall for time.”

“Why would they want to stall for time?”

“I don’t know that either. What do you want to do? Just break it? Or open it properly and go in?”

They couldn’t recklessly destroy it without knowing what was inside.

“Let’s open it.”

“Alright, let’s do that.”

Cho-su took out an unknown rod from the inner robe and installed it in various places. Then he held a small plate in his hand and began to concentrate alone.

“Ha-un.”

“Yes, Hyung-nim.”

“Keep a close eye on Sir Cho-su here. We don’t know what might happen.”

“Yes. You’re heading to that strange symbol you saw earlier, right? Don’t worry and go.”

Jin Ha-un had noticed from Jang Woo-hyun’s reaction and the strange writing that it was a trace left by the Demonic Martial Divine Lord’s Kim Min-soo.

Jang Woo-hyun gave a slight nod and retraced his steps.

‘Good thing I came with them.’

If he had come alone, he would have broken the stone gate without a second thought. And without Jin Ha-un, he wouldn’t have been able to leave Cho-su behind while he worked.

Perhaps it was for situations like this that Kim Min-soo had told him to form trustworthy allies.

Jang Woo-hyun soon arrived and looked at the traces Kim Min-soo had left, covering one entire wall.

열야홊붼□

The characters were written prominently at the top.

Beneath them, a large symbol was drawn. The characters had been clustered in a structured form to resemble a symbol.

Triangles, squares, circles, or ring shapes. There were multiple patterns, but the content written inside was the same.

‘Was he worried they’d be erased?’

Though some parts were damaged, the same text appeared in different shapes. By combining the remaining parts, he could roughly figure out the contents.

Jang Woo-hyun examined over a dozen symbols made of the same characters and pieced together the nineteenth message Kim Min-soo had left.

He couldn’t discover everything, but Jang Woo-hyun managed to glean a few key pieces of information.

First.

The being targeting him was indeed a True Immortal. The part with the name had been completely erased as if by magic, but it clearly stated it was a True Immortal from the Upper Realm.

Why they targeted those from Earth remained unknown. Even by the time this record was made, it seemed Kim Min-soo hadn’t figured out the exact reason.

Second.

The one who had saved him when he was dragged away by the Red Snake wasn’t Kim Min-soo himself. It had been a projection Kim Min-soo had left behind—and not just one, but several of them.

Kim Min-soo had left behind various arrangements for those who would later arrive in the Central Heavens Realm.

Third.

This place was one of those arrangements Kim Min-soo had prepared.

The inner part of the cave was called the Transcendence Pool, which, in terms of the Central Plains, was like a Dragon Vein. In other words, as it was a place where Qi of Heaven and Earth gathered, training here would allow one to grow stronger faster than usual.

Moreover, if used properly, the Transcendence Pool could also be used to send something to the Lower Realm. Through this information, Jang Woo-hyun came to understand how the damaged stone monument he saw back in the Central Plains had made its way down to the Lower Realm.

And finally.

There was a repeatedly appearing sentence, as if it was the most important message.

[Face the wall, take thirty steps. Turn twenty steps to the right. Dig beneath that. Then 3693694783]

This sentence kept appearing in between, regardless of the surrounding content.

‘Did he bury something there?’

It seemed to be giving a general location, but the sequence of numbers at the end was unclear. Kim Min-soo was such an eccentric person that Jang Woo-hyun simply accepted it and began walking, turning his back to the wall with Kim Min-soo’s writing.

Jang Woo-hyun walked thirty steps and turned to the right. Then, he walked twenty more steps. He stopped, pulled out his black sword, and began to dig.

The ground was hard, so it didn’t dig easily. He surrounded the sword with Qi Projection and carefully dug into the earth.

Just when he began to wonder, ‘Do I really need to go this far?’, something appeared. Jang Woo-hyun carefully brushed the dirt aside with his hand and took it out.

What he retrieved was a black box. Whether it was a special type of artifact or not, it was oddly weightless even while he was holding it. It felt as if it wasn’t there at all.

On the top of the box was a numeric pad with nine digits.

‘So this was it.’

Just as Kim Min-soo had instructed, Jang Woo-hyun pressed the numbers on the pad one by one.

Tick. Tick.

Three, six, nine, three, six, nine, four, seven, eight, three.

Click! A sound rang out, and the box opened. Inside the lid, there lay a silver bracelet.

He picked it up, examined it from various angles, and even tried channeling Qi into it—but there was no reaction.

‘Is it an artifact I can’t use?’

Thinking that might be the case, Jang Woo-hyun packed the box and bracelet and returned inward. After all, their group included an expert in artifacts and Dharma Treasures.

“You’re back?”

Apparently finished with his task, Cho-su welcomed Jang Woo-hyun from a short distance away from the stone gate.

“Is it all done?”

“Yeah, now we just have to wait. It’ll take a few hours at the shortest, or maybe a day or two at the longest. What’s that in your hand?”

“I found it over there.”

“Suddenly?”

“This looks like an artifact. Can you tell what it is?”

When Jang Woo-hyun handed over the bracelet and box, Cho-su examined both items.

It didn’t even take the time of a single breath for Cho-su to grasp their functions.

“That’s a fairly high-level artifact. It’s imbued with recognition suppression and doesn’t feel heavy at all. It seems like something crafted specifically for concealment. Where did you get it?”

“I dug it up near the entrance passage. If it’s imbued with recognition suppression, does that mean it’s hard to find?”

“That’s right. It literally lowers the chance of perception. If an object with recognition suppression is left in a corner, even if it’s visible, people won’t pay it much mind. It can also be used to conceal yourself from enemies. But why did you start digging?”

“Do you remember the symbol you saw when we entered?”

“That scribble?”

“Yes, I can read that writing.”

“That was writing? Interesting. So you found it based on that.”

Cho-su didn’t think much of the fact that Jang Woo-hyun could read unusual characters. Since he was from the Lower Realm, he assumed it was just some writing only they knew.

“There was a bracelet inside.”

“How did you open this?”

When Jang Woo-hyun pressed the digits on the box’s number pad again, it opened with a click. Cho-su took another look inside.

“Well, well? What do we have here?”

“What is it?”

“If you force this open, it breaks from the inside. Is hiding things inside boxes the trend now? These recent guys have a lot of schemes.”

After examining the box a few more times, Cho-su placed the bracelet on his hand.

“The bracelet isn’t anything special. It’s used to send signals. Nothing too remarkable. Frankly, it’s not something worthy of being stored inside a box of this level.”

“If it’s for sending signals, can we find out where it sends them to?”

Cho-su shook his head at the question.

“No idea. It seems to be functioning even now, but the signal itself doesn’t seem strong. At best, it might travel a few dozen li? Probably not much farther.”

A few dozen li wasn’t exactly near, but given how strange and advanced the technology seemed, Jang Woo-hyun didn’t question it further. That wasn’t the important part right now.

“And there’s no danger? Carrying it around won’t cause any harm, right?”

“No, there’s not enough power infused in it for that. If the signal is amplified later, it might reach farther, but there’s nothing particularly dangerous about it.”

Receiving the silver bracelet back, Jang Woo-hyun strapped it to his wrist.

Since it was something Kim Min-soo had left behind, it would probably be useful later or serve as some kind of aid.

If someone had found it beforehand and tampered with it, there wouldn’t be anything he could do, especially if even Cho-su couldn’t detect it. Jang Woo-hyun had no affinity with artifacts or Dharma Treasures.

“Ha-un, take out the Dharma Treasures I gave you earlier. Woo-hyun, get out the Dragon King's Scale.”

Cho-su pulled out something like an anvil and tools one might use in a smithy from the inner robe.

“Here you go.”

“Put away the defensive artifact. That one’s for you to use.”

What he handed over were the Mountain-Pushing Hundred-Lee Rod and the Ink Hole Mirror—two artifacts.

Placing the Dragon King's Scale onto the anvil-like object, Cho-su began dismantling the Mountain-Pushing Hundred-Lee Rod and the Ink Hole Mirror.

“……”

Jang Woo-hyun and Jin Ha-un could only watch dumbfounded by the sudden action.

“Um… Sir Cho-su, what are you doing right now?”

“Hmm? The gate won’t open for a while anyway, right? I figured I’d upgrade the Dragon King's Scale while we wait. This one helps increase distance from your opponent, and this mirror can absorb enemy attacks. Since both of them are Dharma Treasures that deal with space, they’ll be useful. The Dragon King's Scale consists of hundreds of small blades that move individually, so if I infuse them with power by dismantling these two, the movement will improve and it’ll become easier to control. Honestly, the efficiency doesn’t justify destroying two decent Dharma Treasures, but we didn’t make these anyway. We just took them after defeating some enemies. So it’s worth doing.”

Having finished his long explanation, Cho-su began clanging away as he started modifying the Dragon King's Scale.

It took just over two hours for Cho-su to finish modifying the Dragon King's Scale.

“…It turned out a bit strange.”

Cho-su, who had been happily working on the Dragon King's Scale, spoke with a puzzled expression.

“Did something go wrong?”

“It’s not exactly a problem… but when it merged with the mirror’s ability, this thing changed.”

Cho-su placed several items taken out from the inner robe onto a workbench that resembled an anvil.

“Watch carefully.”

He brought the Dragon King's Scale close to the first item—no reaction. Same with the second. But when he approached the third item—

Chareureuk!

The Dragon King's Scale disassembled its blades and wrapped around the third item.

A moment later.

When the Dragon King's Scale returned to its sword form, the third item had vanished.

“Uh… is this some kind of trick? Like those street performances?”

Jin Ha-un, eyes wide with curiosity, asked in amazement. Jang Woo-hyun’s reaction wasn’t much different.

“The Dragon King's Scale ate it.”

“Excuse me? Ate it?”

“You remember how the mirror could redirect attacks to another space? It’s like that. It seems the Dragon King's Scale can now swallow certain objects. Just like it did now. It sent the object that was just here into another space.”

“Then, is this like when you infused the Flying Apparatus’s ability into it? Did the inner robe’s ability get added?”

“…Not quite. Because I can’t retrieve it.”

“……”

“So it just makes things disappear?”

Jang Woo-hyun remained silent, while Jin Ha-un asked innocently.

“Well… yeah. That’s how it turned out. I’ll have to properly examine it back home. It’s impossible to fully analyze it here.”

“There won’t be any problem using it, right?”

“There shouldn’t be.”

Jang Woo-hyun received the Dragon King's Scale. He swung it a few times, connected the Qi Threads, and sent Will-Form Qi to try breaking it apart. Nothing seemed wrong. In fact, it felt more responsive than before.

“As long as there’s no problem, it’s fine. It has its own will, so it’ll manage itself.”

“If you think that way, then I’m relieved.”

Cho-su, apologizing several more times, began organizing the equipment he had laid out.

Lastly, he put the workbench back into the inner robe. At that moment, the rods Cho-su had planted around the stone gate began sparking.

Kururung.

Then, as if an earthquake had occurred, the cave shook, and the energy surrounding the stone gate vanished like a lie.

Prepared for any potential danger, Jang Woo-hyun drew his sword and stood protectively in front of the two.

A moment later.

With a grating sound, the stone gate slowly opened.

Jang Woo-hyun’s group stepped through the gate in search of the Transcendence Pool Kim Min-soo had spoken of, and the hidden secrets of the Ascension Cult.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.